Tag: Police

Jun 28

2018

Lehner family to file wrongful death lawsuit

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The family of Officer Craig Lehner intends to file a wrongful death lawsuit against the Buffalo Police Department and the City of Buffalo in the coming weeks, an attorney for the family confirmed to Investigative Post. The family had previously signaled its intention to do so with the filing of a notice of claim. Lehner drowned during a training exercise in the Niagara River last October with the police Underwater Recovery Team. Investigative Post subsequently reported that inadequate training and equipment contributed to his death. Dangerously fast currents typical of the Niagara River were also a factor. On the day Lehner drowned,[...]

Posted 6 years ago

Jun 11

2018

Buffalo police didn’t participate in dive training

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Eight months after Buffalo Police Officer Craig Lehner drowned in the Niagara River’s fast currents, divers from several local law enforcement agencies participated in a three-day swift water dive training in Amherst and Tonawanda. Officers from the Buffalo Police Underwater Recovery Team did not participate, however. A department spokesperson did not respond to calls and a text from Investigative Post inquiring as to why the department didn’t participate. Over the past several months, Investigative Post has exposed the failure of the Buffalo police dive team to adequately train and equip Lehner for that fatal dive in the Niagara River last October.[...]

Posted 6 years ago

May 1

2018

Safety practices ignored in Lehner’s drowning

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If training practices elsewhere are any indicator, the Buffalo Police Department had no business sending Officer Craig Lehner into the rapid currents of the Niagara River last October. Depending on the agency, trainees for swift water diving elsewhere typically start out in water moving somewhere between 1 and 4 knots, or under 5 miles per hour. But the Niagara River on the day Lehner trained – and drowned – was moving at a much faster clip – between 8 and 12 knots, or up to nearly 14 miles per hour. Records obtained from the U.S. Coast Guard show that some divers[...]

Posted 6 years ago

Mar 27

2018

Progress on Buffalo police accreditation

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 The Buffalo Police Department is getting closer to obtaining professional accreditation from the state, according to police representatives who spoke Tuesday at the Common Council’s Police Oversight Committee.   As Investigative Post reported last year, the City Charter requires the police to maintain professional accreditation, a good housekeeping stamp of approval that ensures departments are following contemporary best practices. Over 150 departments across New York are accredited with the state’s Law Enforcement Accreditation Program While the Buffalo police is updating its policies and procedures to comply with the state program  in areas like administration and property maintenance, changes to[...]

Posted 6 years ago

Mar 22

2018

No job search for Buffalo police commissioner

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 Mayor Byron Brown didn’t search for job applicants or interview any candidates other than Byron Lockwood before he nominated him to succeed Daniel Derenda as police commissioner in February. Selecting a police commissioner without conducting a job search is not standard practice for large municipalities. Other cities take their candidate hunts national by posting on professional police association job forums, like the one provided by the International Association of Chiefs of Police. In towns like Amherst and Cheektowaga, applicants take a civil service exam and only the three top-scoring candidates are considered for the position by the town boards.[...]

Posted 6 years ago

Mar 14

2018

Porat discusses police drowning on Press Pass

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Daniela Porat walks Jay Moran of WBFO through her reporting on her recent story about the drowning death of Officer Craig Lehner while on a training dive with the Buffalo Police Department’s Underwater Recovery Team.

Posted 6 years ago

Feb 13

2018

Training, equipment deficient in police drowning

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The rapid-moving and debris-filled water of the Niagara River was unfamiliar territory to Officer Craig Lehner. His previous dives were in relatively calm and contained waters like the Buffalo River and the clear, warm Caribbean where he got his scuba certification. Last October, Lehner was training with the Buffalo Police’s Underwater Recovery Team in the Niagara River, the first time the team had trained there in over a year. While the team’s commander, Detective Leo McGrath, has more than thirty years of diving experience, he is not certified to teach public safety diving. Underwater, Lehner lacked the equipment to verbally[...]

Posted 6 years ago

Feb 9

2018

Buffalo police disbanding troubled Strike Force

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The Buffalo Police Department is disbanding a special unit that ostensibly targets gang, guns and drug activity in the face of criticism over what some regard as its heavy-handed tactics. Police officials confirmed the 19 officers and supervisors in the unit, known as Strike Force, will be reassigned effective March 12. The fate of a related operation known as the Housing Unit, which operates in and around the city’s public housing projects, is not known. Investigative Post in September published a report that documented misconduct on the part of Strike Force and Housing Unit officers. Its reporting turned up ten[...]

Posted 6 years ago
Investigative Post

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